British teacher 'hit disruptive pupil with a dumbbell'

[PMedMoe]

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From the middle of the article:

"The boy began to mess about with a wooden metre rule. He was wandering about the classroom with it, sword fighting with another pupil, that sort of high jinx."

Rafferty added: "He told him to put it down and he did. The boy then took out a metal bunsen burner stand and was waving it about in a similar way.

"Mr Harvey chased him around the classroom and it came to a point when the boy told him to 'fuck off'.

"That seems to have lit the blue touch paper because Mr Harvey grabbed him by his collar and started dragging him out of the classroom.

"He got him out of the classroom and down the corridor into a preparation room.

"He threw him to the ground and armed himself with a 3kg dumbbell and began to hit the boy about the head with it.

"He struck at least two blows to the head which caused serious injury, really serious injury.

"At the time the blows were being struck Mr Harvey was only heard to say one thing.

"What he was saying was 'die, die, die'."

The court heard that one pupil tried to drag Harvey off the boy, who was lying on his back looking "frightened and confused".

The teacher was kneeling above him, raising the dumbbell to shoulder height for each of the blows, the jury was told.

The schoolboy was left with a fractured right temple bone and severe cuts to his head.

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As annoying as kids can be, I think this "teacher" really ought to rethink career choices.

 

[Michael OLeary]

I get the feeling this wasn't the first time he'd had to deal with this kid's behaviour .... and he finally snapped.

 

[GAP]

I agree. 

My 12 year old grandson has friends over fairly constantly....there's a few I would like to take the dumbbell to..... :


Hmmmm.....maybe I could get away with it being a flashback if I called him Charlie...... ;D

 

[Spanky]

This is my 30th year as a teacher, and I've got to tell you, there were times .......  :rage:

 

[Jarnhamar]

Dumbell to the face is probably much but god friend of mine is a teacher and man oh man some of those kids sound like real bastards.
Doesn't help when you introduce shiftless parents who don't give a damn into the mix.

 

[DexOlesa]

One of my junior high teachers picked up and threw a desk at a student. (student totally deserved it) Needless to say he's not teaching anymore.

 

[George Wallace]

Ah!  Yes.  Gone are the days that you had to duck as pieces of chalk or a blackboard eraser flew through the air at someone dozing at the back of the class.  No more loud cracks of a yardstick slamming down on a student's desk......or other parts there of.  All those simpler times are gone.

 

[mariomike]

"Taught to the tune of a hickory stick."
I remember the strap too.
Times have changed, and not for the better, in my opinion.
Seems to be, "Spare the rod, and spoil the child."

 

[Jacqueline]

Dumbell to the face is probably much but god friend of mine is a teacher and ma man some of those kids sound like real bastards.
Doesn't help when you introduce shiftless parents who don't give a damn into the mix.

If I were a teacher i'd rather teach bastards than spoiled little rich kids, but I STILL feel bad for the kid. What that teacher did is totally weak, totally.

 

[Hawk]

I sat in front of the class a$$---- in grade 7 and the teacher told me if he yelled "duck" to put my head on my desk right away. There was chalk or a blackboard brush heading over my head and into B---- behind me. Same teacher grabbed the biggest kid in the class by the front of his shirt and lifted him over the desk and stood him up in front, switched to the scruff of the neck then frog walked him down 2 flights of stairs, out the door and to his parent's house next door to the school. With those two, the strap just didn't work! Good old days - if you were the quiet, mousy one in the class!

 

[mariomike]

With those two, the strap just didn't work! Good old days - if you were the quiet, mousy one in the class!

I only got the strap once. I was eight years old and remember like it was yesterday.
It was for throwing, more like lobbing, a snowball at recess. All very playful. No ice or stones in it. 
I learned my lesson and reformed. It didn't happen a second time.

 

[Spanky]

Back when I was a rookie, I had to help the principal apply the strap to the hand of a small agile 9 year old girl.  I had the job of prying her fingers open so that the principal could have a clear shot at her palm.  The first two wacks landed on my hand.  I don't know who was fighting back the laughter the hardest, her or the principal.

 

[Hawk]

Most of us lived in terror of the principal in those days. The 2 kids in grade 7 - one was killed in a bar brawl, the other is, or was, a businessman in the city where I grew up. I've often wondered if he's still so smart mouthed!

Hawk

 

[SocialyDistorted]

Conversely, my VP took a fist to the head while he tried to break up a fight. We all have more respect for him now because

1) He hit back. Hard.
2) Still has his job
3) He can take a hit like a champ
4) Kid had it coming. FOR SO LONG.

So, apparently it's a matter of finding a time and place to deal with "those" students

 

[mariomike]

We live in a time when police stationed in schools is the "new normal".
( 2008 ):
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2008/06/25/police-schools.html

 

[vonGarvin]

I got the strap in grades 2, 4 and 6.  In grade 8, I was rather nervous.

One strap was for throwing a rock at a fellow student.  Yes, I deserved it.  (one whack only in each case, and it was the anticipation that killed me, making me wait for it, outside, as the previous kid was struck on his palm.).  Another was for wandering into the construction site when the gym was being built.  I can't remember the other one, though.

 

[211RadOp]

Grade 3 or 4 for lying to a teacher, while my dad watched.

 

[Old Sweat]

Kindergarten or Grade One. All the boys had decided with our usual wisdom that we should all get the strap.

 

[Hawk]

I escaped the strap, through blind terror that I'd be in even worse trouble once I got home! Parents sided with the teachers in those days, not with their kids. It was the way of the world, and, in my opinion, not a bad idea! With a few exceptions, we learned valuable lessons - even by someone else's misery, and our classrooms were conducive to learning - it wasn't a zoo. And the teachers I remember most, and respect most were the strictest - grade 3, grade 7, grade 10. They were the worst, and the best.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Took the strap in Gr. 2 - talkin' when I should have been listening - from one of the nuns running the elementary school.

You know you're old when....